.Wad. 





gas g sscs rca a gs sg s sca s fcs s g a s 



^7«r: 



I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



> 






REPLY 



-OK- 






MR. WM. E. CHANDLER 



TO THE SLANDERS OF 



HONORABLE 



BAIKBRIDGE WADLEIGH, 



LATELY IT. S. SENATOR; 



TOGETHER 'WITH A REQUEST FOR EXPLANATION OF 



SOME ACTS OF ME. WADLEIGH 



WHILE SENATOR. 




CONCORD, N. H., 

JUNE 7, 1879. 



EEPLY OF 
ME. WM. E. CHANDLEE 

TO THE SLANDERS OF 

HONORABLE BAINBRIDGE WADLEIGH, 

Lately U. S. Senator, together with a request for explanation of some 
acts of Mr. Wadleigh while Senator. 



Concord, June 7, 1879. 
Hon. Bainbridge Wadleigh : 

Sir: During the last two years or more, and especially 
since you decided to support, and I to oppose, the Southern 
policy of President Hayes, which has proved disastrous and is 
now distinctly abandoned and condemned by its authors, you 
have been habitually defaming my character, by assertions con- 
cerning my business and professional occupation at Washing- 
ton ; made not openly and boldly, but in secret, and in conver- 
sations not intended to come to my knowledge, but to destroy 
my reputation with the persons you addressed, without any 
opportunity for me to reply to and refute your slanders. 

Whether you have thus taken an unfair advantage of your 
high position as a United States Senator to commence and 
continue to defame and injure a mere private citizen who 
never gave you occasion for your hostility, from jealousy of a 
possible rival, or from old habits acquired in the early years 
of your law practice, when you narrowly escaped disbarment 
on a charge of trickery, it is not material to me ; but I am de- 
termined no longer to be injured, without public and emphatic 
protest, by such slanders, made plausible and important only 
by reason of the official station you have held. 



YOUR REFUSAL TO MAKE YOUR SLANDERS SPECIFIC. 

The nearest approach you have made to open defamation 
was in certain statements in a letter of February 22, 1879, to 
the Monitor and Statesman, concerning the Voelter Wood 
Paper Pulp Patent ; and even there you do not mention my 
name. Having been informed of your oral slanders by my 
friends, and that they understood the statements in your letter 
to refer to me, I requested Col. Win. E. Stevens, the editor 
who had taken the responsibility of publishing them, to ascer- 
tain, if possible, whom you meant. Subsequently he addressed 
you this letter, — 

Concord, March 14, 1S79. 

Hon. B. Wadleigh, Milford, N. H. : 

Dear Sir : You did not call on me when you were in Con- 
cord ; if you had done so, I should have made some inquiries 
of you, which I now present. In your published letter of 
February 23, you attribute the Globe article connecting you 
with the Voelter Patent, and also the attack upon you in the 
Nashua Telegraph, to Washington lobbyists, and in particular 
to "a gentleman, whose connection with the Washington lobby 
is not a matter of conjecture." You also state, that by your un- 
varying opposition to all the plundering schemes of the Wash- 
ington rings and lobbyists you have won their bitter hostility ; 
and that you were long ago informed that you could not be re- 
elected unless you yielded to them ; and long ago resolved that 
you would accept no office on such degrading terms. 

If the facts are as you state, I wish to know them more ac- 
curately, so that I may not be misled by any such influence in 
reference to yourself or any other person or subject ; and they 
perhaps ought also to be known to the people of New Hamp- 
shire. 

Will you therefore inform me what the plundering schemes 
were, by opposing which you have won the bitter hostility you 
speak of; who the persons are who compose the rings in 
question; and in particular who the gentleman is, connected 
with the lobby, whom you charge as instigating the attack 
upon you, with liberty to use the information as I may deem 
proper. 

Very respectfully, 

VVM. E. STEVENS. 

To this letter no reply was given by you ; and ten days later 
Col. Stevens again wrote you, requesting a reply ; but of nei- 
ther letter have you ever taken any notice. 



5 

This refusal to define what and whom you meant in your 
published attack, I consider cowardly ; and you have placed 
yourself unmistakably in the attitude of a willingness to pub- 
licly claim credit and sympathy for yourself by accusations 
against others, without daring to name the men whom you ac- 
cuse, nor to specify the acts which you charge upon them, so 
as to give them an equal opportunity to defend themselves. 

I am further justified in saying, that you then desired and 
now desire to have the people of New Hampshire believe that 
you specially meant to incriminate and make odious a particu- 
lar person, and yet had not the courage, in the face of the peo- 
ple, to call him by name and stand by your accusations. Such 
evasion and dodging is in keeping with other acts of your Sen- 
atorial career, and is utterly unmanly and discreditable. 

CHALLENGE TO MAKE YOUR SLANDERS PUBLICLY. 

It is now my privilege publicly to request of you openly to 
proclaim the various statements you have so constantly made 
concerning me during the past two years. If you meant me in 
your letter of February 22d, I desire you to charge it publicly, 
as an open assailant, instead of whispering it slyly as a secret 
slanderer; and to make good, if you can, your statements, 
charges, and insinuations, by specification, description, and 
proof. If you do not, I shall stigmatize you as a wilful libel- 
ler, unworthy of the least credit among honorable men. 

COMPREHENSIVE DENTAL AND DEFIANCE. 

In advance of what you may say, I challenge investigation 
and exposure of all my actions, public and private, during my 
whole life. What they have been in New HamjDshire is well 
known to her people, and especially to the citizens of Concord. 
In Washington I have been in official position, in business en- 
terprises, in arduous political service, and in legitimate and 
honorable law practice. During the last three years, however, 
I have been obliged to give up the greater portion of my law 
business, except limited service for one client, who has em- 
ployed and trusted me for over ten years, and for the protec- 
tion against unjust encroachment, of a business investment of 



my own and other New England men, in which I have ven- 
tured about all I am worth. The rest and largest part of my 
time has been freely and gratuitously devoted to electing Presi- 
dent Hayes, securing for him a fair count, and defending his 
title while opposing his fatal Southern policy. 

From my admission to the bar in 1865 to this hour, I have 
endeavored to do no dishonorable act, either in my law busi- 
ness at home or in Washington ; in office in the Navy or 
Treasury Departments ; or in my connection with politics; I 
have battled, whenever the occasion seemed to demand, openly 
and boldly, for all my convictions, without caring for personal 
consequences ; and I defy you and all my other defamers, per- 
sonal or political, all Potter Committees, and pulp and patent 
corruptionists, to leave contemptible insinuations and coward- 
ly secret suggestions, and come out into the open daylight and 
charge and sustain anything against me. 

You and your agents have freely stated that I desire only 
Congressmen from New Hampshire whom I can control and 
improperly use; and that I would have had no objection to 
you if I could have controlled you. This is a slander upon 
Senators Cragin, Patterson, and Rollins, and Representatives 
Stevens, Pike, Briggs, Ela, and Blair, no one of whom have 
I ever attempted to use or control ; nor have I ever inter- 
fered with or taken any part in any New Hampshire matter at 
Washington except in cooperation with and at the request of 
some or all of our Congressmen ; while as to yourself, although 
we were in familiar, and, so far as I knew, friendly intercourse, 
with occasional correspondence, during the first four years of 
your senatorship and as late as April, 1S77, I never undertook 
to control or influence you, nor directly or indirectly desired or 
asked anything of you, at any time, anywhere, to any extent, 
or under any circumstances ; and I challenge you to assert the 
contrary, and specify the instance. 



EXPLAIN YOUR OWN SURRENDER TO CORRUPT INFLUENCES. 

There are other questions to which I wish to call your atten- 
tion, and ask of you explanations. For three or four years 
after your accidental election as senator, you often, although 



insincerely, declared that you did not like the office, and that 
you were inclined to resign it and resume more congenial law 
practice. You now present yourself for reelection solely on 
the ground that you have resisted the corrupt influences of 
Washington lobbyists ; and while so doing you make charges of 
corruption against persons who you say are your enemies, but 
venture not to name them. An examination, however, of some 
acts of yours while senator, discloses facts which, without denial 
and disproof in detail, will convince every one that, instead of 
being abstemiously honest among corrupt influences, you have 
surrendered to a corrupt ring at Washington, and are, like many 
a prototype, in fact guilty of all you wrongly charge against 
others. 

PATENT CORRUPTIONS THE CAUSE OF YOUR FALL. 

Of all causes of dishonesty and corruption at Washington, 
those arising from patents take the lead. With the patent 
lobby, you, as chairman of the Senate Committee on Patents, 
came into close relations. Taking advantage of the unpopu- 
larity at the West of two or three agricultural patents oppres- 
sively handled, you first entered into a combination with cer- 
tain wealthy corporate interests to enable them to oppress and 
destroy poor inventors, and to make the whole patent system 
valueless to them, and only operative as a means to enable rich 
capitalists to seize meritorious inventions, and with them 
plunder the public without benefiting the real inventors. 

YOUR ALLIANCE WITH THE PATENT CORRUPTIONISTS THROUGH 
JOHN W. ODLIN, A LABORER. 

To procure the passage of a bill of this character, there came 
to Washington an agent of the Western Railroad Association 
of Chicago. There came also a formidable -lobby, whose boast 
it was that with free liquors, free carriages, and other influ- 
ences of various kinds, they would reach their ends. Their 
ally in the Senate you became, and established intimate rela- 
tions with them in person, and more especially through your 
private secretary, John W. Odlin, whom you had taken into 
your full confidence, although a man of bad repute and of worse 



8 

habits, of which lie freely boasts, and had placed on the Sen- 
ate rolls alternately as a committee clerk, and as a "laborer" 
doing no work but drawing full pay, while some poor colored 
man did the work at half price ; — his real office being that of a 
go-between of yours and the Western Railroad Association, 
drinking their free rum at their spacious head-quarters at Wil- 
lards, and manipulating in their interest the author and advo- 
cate of Senate Bill No. 300, known as the Wadleigh Patent 
Bill. 

THE WADLEIGH PATENT BILL, NO. 3OO. 

This bill, which you made yourself responsible for, and during 
the last three months of your term pressed incessantly, backed by 
as formidable a lobby as Washington ever saw, antagonizing it 
to important public business, until you finally fulfilled your un- 
dertaking and crowded it through the Senate, is a bundle of 
iniquities, designed to put obstacles in the way of poor inven- 
tors, and to make patents worthless except when stolen and 
manipulated by men already wealthy. 

ITS INIQUITIES. 

The true character of the bill is concisely stated in the ac- 
companying letter of J. McC. Perkins, Esq., a patent lawyer 
at Washington, whom I never knew until a few weeks ago, 
and who of his own accord entered upon an investigation of 
the subject. His statements are but the reecho of a sentiment 
now almost universal, since the bill and the influences pressing 
it have come to be understood. That senators and members 
of integrity and acuteness voted for it, is true ; some from that 
Western prejudice which I have spoken of, and others because 
of the belief they then had in your representations and those of 
the lobby. But your success in deceiving them only makes the 
case worse for you. After the bill came to be thoroughly un- 
derstood, it was ignominiously defeated in the House, and is 
not likely ever to become a law. 

HOW IT WAS TO RE-ELECT YOU SENATOR. 

One special fact is noticeable. Prominent among the men, 
reputable and disreputable, who crowded to Washington to 



force through this bill, was Mr. T. L. Livermore, who demand- 
ed that it should contain a provision preventing the reissue of a 
patent accidentally defective from being based upon the model, 
usually prepared by the inventor himself, and always deposited 
in the Patent Office. Mr. Livermore secured the amendment 
he desired ; he has been an intimate friend and an associate 
and partner of yours in law business ; has lately become agent 
of the Amoskeag Corporation at Manchester, and is wielding 
the immense money power of that company to force your re* 
election as senator. Will the members from Manchester yield 
their convictions to such influences? 

THE VOELTER WOOD PULP PATENT. HOW YOU TRICKED IT 

THROUGH THE SENATE. 

Your championship and procurement of the extension, until 
its twenty-eighth year, of the Voelter wood pulp patent, are well 
known to the public. February 27th, 1877, you made a report 
in favor of the extension. March 2d, late in the afternoon, you 
moved to take up the bill (No. 1255), and said, « It is the only 
thing the Committee on Patents have asked for." So it seems 
it had been your only business at this session to get this exten- 
sion. Senator Cockrell asked for the report, and said, u Let it 
be read." You objected, and said, "// is lo?ig." The report 
is sixty-two printed lines, being only six lines more than one 
printed page, and I have just read it aloud deliberately in 2§ 
minutes. You prevented its being read, and also said, " Let 
me say that the moment this bill is understood there would be 
no discussion upon it, and no opposition to it. It is the case or 
an invention wholly new, of immense value to this country, 
where the inventor has lost $33,000 as it stands to-day." But 
even this assurance did not then succeed, and the Senate ad- 
journed till eight in the evening, when you were promptly on 
hand, got up the bill, and hurried it through without debate, 
with few senators present, and with little notice taken of the 
transaction. 

I charge that you took advantage of the excitement of the 
presidential count, and of the absence, fatigue, or inattention ol 
senators, to hurry through, by well-timed motions, by deception 



10 

and misrepresentation, and by pledging your honor as a sena- 
tor and chairman, an iniquitous bill, the demerits of which 
were known to you, and were not known to any other senator. 

HOW IT WAS TRICKED THROUGH THE HOUSE. 

The proceedings in the House were quite as extraordinary. 
The House Journal shows that on the same night, just before 
adjournment at i : 25 Saturday morning, the bill, with a mass 
of other bills, passed the House. The Congressional Record 
shows that when it was first reached, Mr. Springer, a leading 
Illinois Democrat, objected to it. Later (page 2140) is this : 

Mr. Springer : " I desire to withdraw my objection to the 
bill (H. R. No. 555), the patent being in the interest of the dis- 
semination of knowledge." 

But even the acute reporters for the Record do not state that 
the bill then passed, and if it did it must have been very quick- 
ly and quietly slipped through during the confusion of those 
hours. Mr. Springer now says he was induced to withdraw 
his objection and make the statement by Mr. W. H. H. Stow- 
ell, a Virginia member (who subsequently obtained an interest 
in the patent, as appears in a letter annexed from Mr. Perkins) ; 
and Mr. Springer also says that Mr. Stowell told him this was 
a House bill which had been reported favorably from the House 
Committee ; and, learning the contrary and the true facts, he has 
since introduced a bill to repeal the patent, and proposes to 
press its passage. In fact, the House Committee never consid- 
ered or acted upon the subject ; and the bill was passed by 
trickery, now evident and undisputed, as Mr. Springer will 
state. 

THE VOELTER PATENT MONOPOLY AN ENORMOUS BURDEN 

UPON THE PUBLIC. 

The Voelter patent, thus prolonged for seven years after 
twenty-one vears, is simply an apparatus for holding wood 
against a grindstone with the grain or fibres parallel to the axis 
of the stone, so that the wood maybe ground into pulp without 
cutting or breaking the fibres. But by means of the patent, a 



II 



wealthy and powerful monopoly has been and is enabled by 
you to impose a burden of many millions of dollars upon the 
newspaper reading public of America. The cost of the wood 
is about one half a cent per pound ; one cent per pound will 
pay the whole cost of manufacture; all above $30 per ton is 
profit. In 1S70 the selling price of pulp was six cents per 
pound. In 1877, according to your report, it was three cents 
per pound, or $60 per ton, giving $30 per ton profit to the 
owners and tax upon the public resulting from the Voelter 
monopoly. You stated in your report, when trying to show 
how much this invention had saved the country by reducing 
the price of pulp, that the annual production of wood-pulp was 
360,000 tons. If so, the Voelter patent burdens the people an 
nually with $10,800,000. You cannot escape this conclusion 
except by denying your own figures, and explaining why you 
■ : wilfully and monstrously" exaggerated the product. Taking 
the more reasonable figures of sixty tons per day, or iS,ooo 
tons per year, as the present product, and the profits are $540,- 
000 per year, or $3,780,000 unnecessary tax upon the public in 
the seven years of the extended patent. But the owners of the 
patent testify that there can be profitably used in America 125 
tons per day, in which event the profit would be $1,125,000 per 
year, or $7,875,000 during the extended life of the patent. 

Verily the owners of the patent could well afford to capture 
a United States senator by paying his political contributions 
and the cost of his reelection to the Senate. 

YOUR MISREPRESENTATIONS TO GET IT PASSED. 

Of course, to get through Congress such an enormous patent 
job, it was necessary to resort to such artful tricks as I have 
described. But much other rascality marks its history. 

FALSE STATEMENTS ABOUT VOELTER's POVERTY. 

You stated in your report, that" from his patent in the coun- 
tries of Europe the inventor has received comparatively noth- 
ing;" that his expenditures to 1S70 were $100,508, and his 
receipts $33,000, and that since 1870 his receipts were $20,000 ; 
" consequently he has thus far met with a loss of about $47,000 ;" 
and in your place in the Senate you said, "the inventor has lost 



12 

$33>ooo as it stands to-day ;" and you also report that he "was 
and Is a man of small pecuniary means." 

Voelter says, in an ex -parte affidavit in 1870, that he had 
received $16,000 from Germany, $2,000 from Sweden, $2,000 
from France, $3,000 from Russia, and $Soo from Canada, mak- 
ing $23,800, but he does not give his receipts from England ! 
He does, however, state, that from 1865 to 1870 he had 150 
machines in operation in Europe, each averaging 200 tons 
per year, or 150,000 tons in five years, the profits on which 
could not have been less than four millions of dollars, of which 
Voelter, who has never been subjected to cross-examination, 
says he received only $23,800. This statement is incredible ! 
He also states, in 1877? that he had, since 1870, received in 
Europe $7,000, and subsequently admitted $21,000 more, mak- 
ing $51,800 in all admitted in Europe. As to America, he says 
he sold the patent to A. Pagenstecher and his associates for 
$5,000, Jan. 1, 1S69, and $6,000 per year annually thereafter, 
or $53,000 at the time of your report. These figures make 
$104,800, instead of $53,000 as stated by you. 

As to his alleged expenses of $100, 50S, he includes $1,000 for 
exhibiting his invention at London, in 1862, and $14,800 at 
Paris, in 1867, without giving particulars! He estimates his 
own time, from 1846 to 1S55, at $15,400, and from 1S56 to 1870 
at $27,300, — and yet all this time he was engaged in active 
business, which he did not neglect ! He includes $9,600 for 
persons hired from 1S46 to 1S55 and $26,000 from 1S55 to 
1870 and $5,000 for getting patents, — all without details. From 
the bogus claims, set up in this solitary ex parte affidavit, noth- 
ing is allowable, by any reasonable rule, except $458 for 
American patents, $20 for a laborer, and $60 for travelling ex- 
penses, making $538 in all ; and unquestionably he has received 
over $100,000 from his invention, and probably many thousand 
dollars more. 

These facts you knew when you made your report and state- 
ment in the Senate. 



13 



FALSE STATEMENTS THAT VOELTER HAD NOT ASSIGNED 

THE PATENT. 

You stated in your report, — 

" The evidence shows that he has made no arrangements as 
"to the sale of the extended patent, and that suck extension 
"will be for his benefit." 

A careful examination of the record evidence, and the con- 
sideration of other facts equally sure, compel me to charge that 
the above statement is untrue, and that you knew it was untrue 
when you made it, and yet made it deliberately, in order to de- 
ceive your associates in Congress and get through a patent, not 
for the benefit of a poor foreign inventor, Henry Voelter, whose 
name alone appears in your report, but to enrich an overgrown 
monopoly, to the temptations offered bv which you deliberately 
yielded. 

Voelter's statement and petition, in 1870, say that he sold his 
patent of 1S5S to Alberto Pagenstecher and his associates for 
the original term and its extensions. This statement was be- 
fore you in 1S77 ; and you also saw the deed of Nov. 6th, 1S6S 
(recorded in the Patent Office transfer record, Book D, page 
314), from Voelter to Pagenstecher, which covers the patent 
and " any extensions or renewals thereof;" and you have known 
that Pagenstecher and his associates have held the patent ever 
since that date ; and that April 6, 1869, they obtained a reissue, 
and June 6, 1S71, a second reissue, both in the name of Pagen- 
stecher as assignee. 

The associates of Mr. Pagenstecher are Warner Miller, of 
Herkimer, N. Y., and Wm. A. Russell, of Lawrence, Mass., — 
both now congressmen : and they own substantially the whole 
gigantic wood-paper pulp monopoly in America, — Mr. Miller 
for New York and the West, and Mr. Russell for New Eng- 
land. They were witnesses before you, asking for this exten- 
sion, and stated that they were interested in the patent. Mr. 
Warren F. Daniell, paper manufacturer, of Franklin, N. H , 
was also a witness before you, urging the extension ; and Ex- 
Gov. P. C. Cheney, an owner of pulp-mills in this state and in 
Illinois, spent the month of February, 1S775 hi Washington, 



14 

constantly urging you to pass the Voelter extension bill, and 
was there for that purpose. 

The patent had been in existence twenty-one years ; Miller 
and Russell owned the patent, and, with Daniell and Cheney 
as associates, were getting enormously rich from it. Did they 
urge upon you its extension, with no an-angements for its future 
use? To say that they did, or that you thought so, is utterly 
preposterous ; and yet you said to the Senate that this was the 
case of a poor, meritorious inventor, who had made no arrange- 
ment for selling the extended patent, and that such extension 
would be for his benefit ! 

Subsequent events, also, prove the complete falsity of your 
statement. On the application, in 1S77, before the Commis- 
sioner, for the extension under your bill, Miller and Russell 
admitted under oath that they controlled the entire patent. It 
was objected, that under such circumstances it should not be 
extended, even under your law. On July 31, 1877 (after the 
whole case had been submitted to Commissioner Speare) Miller, 
Russell, and the licensees of the patent conveyed all their in- 
terests to Pagenstecher, Voelter's assignee. As soon as the 
Commissioner had, in August, 18775 made a favorable deci- 
sion, Voelter made a conveyance to Pagenstecher, and he 
again conveyed their former interests to Miller and Russell, and 
they reconveyed to the smaller owners or licensees their old 
petty interests. What was the precise object of these sham 
transactions does not appear ; but all the facts show that Voel- 
ter was a mere figurehead to cover a gross fraud upon Con- 
gress and the country, and that you knew that Miller and Rus- 
sell and Daniell and Cheney were the real parties in interest in 
the extension, and that you were willing to aid in that fraud, 
and prostitute for its perpetration the high office with which 
the legislature of New Hampshire had happened to honor you. 

THE PATENT VOID OK MANY GROUNDS. 

There are numerous other objections to the Voelter patent, 
which I will not now state, and which you either knew or 
would have known if you had done your duty, and heard dis- 
interested witnesses instead of Miller and Russell and Daniell 
and Cheney. (1) Our statutes specially provide against an 



15 

extension of an American potent to a foreigner after his home 
patents have expired, so that our people may not pay him 
tribute after his own country ceases to deem him meritorious. 
The Voelter patent in Europe expired before 1S70, and there- 
fore the extension in this country of August 29, 1870, was ille- 
gal, and more so was your extension of 1877* ( 2 ) The inven- 
tion was not novel, because a French patent of 1847 describes 
an invention for grinding wood cut into pieces as long as the 
grindstone is wide ; plainly implying that the wood is to be 
held against the stone with the fibres parallel to its axis — which 
is the whole substance of the Voelter patent. (3) The state 
of the art of grinding wood pulp at the time of first granting 
the patent in this country, taken in connection with prior pat- 
ents, makes this patent invalid. It is absurd to give a monop- 
oly for a mere method of holding the wood against the stone, 
substantially known and practised long before. (4) Voelter's 
contradictory and confused statements as to the time, circum- 
stances, authorship, and ownership of the invention now claimed 
for him, will destroy the patent on any full and fair trial ; — and 
so on with many other objections. 

THE PATENT A MONOPOLY BECAUSE OPPRESSIVELY MANIPU- 
LATED BY RICH CONGRESSMEN AND AN EX-GOVERNOR. 

Why, then, if these fatal defects exist, does the patent ope- 
rate as a monopoly? For no other reason than one not unusual 
in patent experience, — because of the large amount of money 
behind it, enabling its holders to use it as a pretext to oppress 
and crush out the inventors and users of all pulp-grinding ma- 
chines, most of whom find it cheaper to pay a license fee for 
the machines they use, than to fight in lawsuits ; and Miller and 
Russell are thus able to limit the number of pulp machines in 
the country, make the wood pulp production a monopoly, and 
burden the large daily newspapers of the country, nine-tenths 
of which are printed on wood paper, and the public who sup- 
port them, with a price for paper twice as great as it should be ; 
amassing huge fortunes by which to elect themselves to Con- 
o-ress to protect their wrongfully-gotten patent, and if possible to 
seduce and debauch other Senators and members as they have 



i6 

you, by furnishing their New Hampshire partners and asso- 
ciates with money for purposes which the members of the leg- 
islature can discover, if they choose to open their eyes to be- 
hold your array of outside retainers now swarming the state 
capital, and whose names shall be carefully recorded, and will 
be held in remembrance long after they return to their towns- 
men to disburse in their midst their petty shares of pulp-money. 
By the pulp monopoly which you created, profitable wood- 
paper mills in New Hampshire have been limited in produc- 
tion, or destroyed ; without it, dozens of them would be in full 
operation along our streams, increasing our population and 
wealth. It is yet to be determined whether pulp-money con- 
trols our politics. 

WHY HAVE YOU BEEN A SENATORIAL DODGER? 

While you have thus labored with zeal and alacrity, instant 
m season and out of season, whenever questionable patent 
legislation was to be manipulated, why have you entirely failed 
to do your duty as Senator when votes have been taken on im- 
portant public questions? 

YOU DODGED THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION BILL. 

In the crisis of the count of the presidential vote of 1876 
the Electoral Commission bill was before Congress, and it 
was of great importance that it should be fully discussed and 
courageously voted on by every Senator. When the yeas and 
nays were called you dodged the vote. Why did you thus 
evade your duty? You have said that at the time the bill was 
voted on, " and for several days after, I was confined to my 
bed by sickness." This excuse will not serve you, for the Con- 
gressional Record shows that just before the bill passed you 
were present and responded to the call of the yeas and nays 
on some incidental motion concerning the bill. Were you 
taken sick and compelled to go to bed immediately after this 
vote? There is no doubt that just as the final vote was ap- 
proaching you did go home and go to bed, but you were no 
sicker than many other Senators who remained and did their 
duty, and then went to their homes and beds. Your excuse is 



17 

undoubtedly a pretence. You intentionally dodged, and are 
sicker now than you were then ! 

YOU REFUSED TO VOTE TO RE-ELECT SENATOR CRAGIN. 

Your excuse for not voting on the Electoral Commission bill 
might possibly be believed if dodging were not your habit. 
When Senator Cragin was renominated and elected, you op- 
posed him in caucus, and threatened to bolt. When the House 
was voting, before the roll-call reached your name, you rose 
and left the hall, and refused to vote for the regular nominee of 
your party. Why did you thus dodge ? 

YOU DODGED SENATOR PINCHBACK's CASE. 

When the case of Senator Pinchback was before the Senate, 
you would not vote for his admission, came off to New Hamp- 
shire without pairing either for or against him, and, in spite of 
repeated telegrams sent you, refused to pair. Afterwards, as 
Chairman of the Election Committee, you reported in favor of 
the admission of the Democratic Senator Eustis in Pinchback's 
place, and secured it, against the minority report of some of 
the ablest Republican Senators on the committee. But this re- 
port was less discreditable to you than dodging in Pinchback's 
case. 

YOU DODGED THE M'VEAGH-COMMISSION CASE. 

Secretary Sherman borrowed about ten thousand dollars, and 
paid the expenses of the McVeagh-Commission to go to Lou- 
isiana and tear down Packard's government. He induced the 
Senate Appropriation Committee to put an item in a bill to 
pay this sum ; but the Senate rejected the item by a decided 
majority. You knew it was coming up, and went away from 
the capitol on pretence of business : unfortunately for you the 
debate was longer than you expected, and you reached the 
Senate, and I myself saw you standing on the floor while the roll 
was being called, and before it was too late to vote ; and yet you 
dodged. Why did you thus evade your obligations? Most of 
the Republicans voted against the payment; several true Re- 
publicans voted for it. What were your complicated relations 
2 



i8 

with the radical Senators and Secretary Sherman that you 
dared vote on neither side? 

YOU DODGED THE NEW YORK CUSTOM HOUSE APPOINTMENTS. 

The last inquiry is made more pertinent by your failure to 
vote on the nomination of General Merritt as collector of New 
York. This was an exciting contest between Senator Conk- 
lino-, supported by most of the Republican Senators and a few 
Democrats, and Secretary Sherman and the administration, 
backed by most of the Democratic and a few Republican Sena- 
tors. You might have voted whichever way your judgment 
honestly inclined you, with honor and without injury, and you 
were not at this time absent from pretended sickness ; and yet 
you did not vote, and were the only Republican Senator present, 
not paired and not voting. Why did you dodge this vote ? The 
Republicans of New Hampshire tolerate the largest honest dif- 
ference of opinion in their own ranks, but they do expect their 
public men, especially their most highly honored Senators, to 
form opinions on important questions, and express and act 
upon them frankly and fearlessly ; and any congressman who 
omits to do this is not a true representative of our intelligent, 
radical, aggressive Republicanism. 

YOU GAVE A FALSE REASON FOR DODGING. 

The excuses you have undertaken to give for your failure 
to vote on the New York nominations well illustrate your 
character and methods. 

You stated, in a published letter to Hon. O. C. Moore, 
editor of the Nashua Telegraph : 

I withheld my vote because it would not affect the result, 
and because I had a profound disgust and contempt for 
" lo2>rolline:." Could the honest voters of this state know 
all the facts they would justify me. 

Yours respectfully, 

B. WADLEIGH. 

Your affected hesitation about disclosing proceedings in 
executive session of the Senate did not, however, hinder 



19 

you from orally and privately (while also whispering your 
slanders upon me) asserting this : 

That you intended to vote for General Merritt's confirm- 
ation, but that just before the vote was taken, located as 
your seat was on the Democratic side of the chamber, you 
overheard the Democrats say that it was arranged that if 
Merritt should be confirmed, Senator Stanley Matthews 
would not vote for, but would prevent the ejection of Ham- 
burg Butler as Senator from South Carolina, and the admis- 
sion of Senator Corbin ; and that, moved with righteous in- 
dignation at this bargain, you impulsively withheld your 
vote. 

This reason apparently corresponds with your above writ- 
ten statement to Mr. Moore. Unfortunately it is confronted 
with a denial from Senator Matthews, as this correspond- 
ence will show : 

Concord, N. H., March 25, 1879. 
Hon. Stanley Matthews, 

Cincinnati, Ohio: 
Dear Sir: A statement is going the rounds of this state 
that there was an understanding between you and Demo- 
cratic Senators, that if General Merritt should be confirmed 
as collector of New York by their votes, you would vote 
against taking up the Corbin case ; or an understanding 
somewhat like that above suggested. This statement I 
would like to contradict by your authority if it is incorrect 
as I believe it is. 

Yours very truly, 

W. E. STEVENS. 

Cincinnati, Ohio, 

March 29, 1879. 
W. E. Stevens, Esq., Concord, N. H. : 

My Dear Sir: I have just received your note of 25th 
inst, in which you say that a statement has found circula- 
tion in the public newspaper press of New Hampshire, that 
there was an understanding between myself and Democratic 
Senators, that if Gen. Merritt should be confirmed as col- 
lector of New York by their votes, I would vote ao-ainst 



20 

taking up the Corbin case, or an understanding of that 
nature. 

There is not a particle of truth in the statement, nor the 
least foundation whatever for it. It is simply a lie out of 
whole cloth. I had no understanding of any nature, with 
Democratic Senators, on either subject. You are authorized 
to contradict the whole story, whatever shape it assumes. 

Yours truly, 

STANLEY MATTHEWS. 



YOUR TRUE REASON FOR DODGING WAS DISGRACEFUL TO YOU. 

This exploded reason for not voting, based upon your 
alleged sudden impulse at discovering " log-rolling" between 
Senator Matthews and the Democrats, has been your excuse 
to radical or stalwart Republicans. You have had a second, 
different, and inconsistent reason ready, principally for use 
with admirers of President Hayes and Secretary Sherman, 

namely : 

That you had a prior understanding with Secretary Sher- 
man that you would vote for General Merritt if your vote 
should appear necessary to secure his confirmation ; but 
that otherwise you might withhold it on account of opposi- 
tion you feared would develop in New Hampshire to your 
reelection if you voted with the administration and against 
Senator Conkling and the senators supporting him. 

This understanding with Secretary Sherman was reached 
through Assistant Secretary Henry F. French, with whom 
you reside when in Washington ; and out of the mouths of 
two or three witnesses can every word be established. I 
am not aware that you do not now adhere to this as the true 
reason. You have been in correspondence with Secretary 
Sherman on the subject, and have privately shown to some 
persons his reply to your request for a written excuse for 
not voting. He has said that his letter may be made pub- 
lic. Will you produce it ? 

If this excuse for your dodging be the true and only one, 
as I am inclined to think it is, in what a contemptible light 



21 



do you place yourself before the people of New Hampshire : 
bargaining with the administration for permission, if your 
vote on a public question would not affect the result, to 
dodge, in order not to announce to your senatorial constit- 
uency, from whom you were soliciting a reelection, your 
opinion which of two Republicans should be a collector of 
customs ! How can such senatorial dignity, manliness, and 
true courage be spared from the Senate by the stalwart 
Republicans of New Hampshire during the dangerous con- 
tests of the next six years ! 

PRODUCE YOUR BATCH OF EXCUSES AND CERTIFICATES OF 

CHARACTER. 

Undoubtedly Secretary Sherman will give you any rea- 
sonable reward of merit or certificate of excuse you may de- 
sire. It is doubtful if President Hayes would, for I have 
been informed he thinks you were very cowardly. But your 
plausibilities secretly whispered might deceive the very 
elect. I have heard that you have been procuring certifi- 
cates of good character from brother Senators, who are 
often willing to go too far to aid in shielding each other 
from senatorial blunders and crimes, and have sometimes 
done so to the great wrong and injury of the Republican 
party ; and especially might this be the case with worthy 
Senators whom you may have deceived or enticed into vot- 
ing with you on your various patent schemes, and who may 
now feel obliged to try to vindicate their own record by 
unnecessarily sustaining the author of their mistakes. 

This personal influence, by even an unworthy Senator, up- 
on his associates, is well illustrated by the fact, that in June, 
1878, you succeeded, by incessant importunity, in procuring 
from the other members of the Committee on Elections, of 
which you were chairman, a report against the right of the 
legislature of New Hampshire, then in session, to elect a 
Senator. It was a life or death struggle with you, and you 
persuaded them into announcing a denial of the right, which 



22 



view, in the recent debate, was almost universally repudiat- 
ed, and Senator Bell only obtained his seat because a small 
majority of the Senate believed that, not the people of New 
Hampshire, but the Senate itself, under your manipulation, 
were to blame for the failure to elect in 1878. 

Still, whatever your administration or Senatorial certifi- 
cates are, they are entitled to be considered ; — will you not 
furnish them to the public, and not exhibit them only to a 
favored few ? 

A LITTLE WHOLESOME ADVICE, IN CONCLUSION GO TO 

PRACTISING LAW. 

In April, 1877, you did me the honor to ask my opinion 
on the next senatorial election. After long consideration, I 
am now free to advise you not to be a candidate. You have 
certain mental and moral tendencies that are likely to prove 
your ruin if you indulge them, and they have already begun 
to drag you downward. They developed instantly when you 
commenced law practice, in which trickery and chicanery 
frequently bring temporary success : they made you a dis- 
reputable practitioner, and nearly resulted in your expulsion 
from the bar. Taught a severe lesson, you struggled to re- 
strain them, and so far succeeded that the memory of your 
early sins did not prevent your accidental election as Sen- 
ator. Stepping into the Senate upon the prostrate form of 
one of New Hampshire's most brilliant public men, you 
thought enforced self-restraint, hypocrisy, and self-righteous- 
ness would be for a time the most politic course ; — but on 
the first serious temptation you fell. The force of early 
habit was too strong. You never should have trusted your- 
self amid the corruptions of the pulp and patent ringsters, 
for you were not permanently cured of your original appe- 
tites. But your case is not hopeless ; — only do not again 
trust yourself amid temptation. Do not ask the Repub- 
licans of New Hampshire to reelect you to the Senate, and 
to run the risk of endorsing all the dishonesties which may 



23 

be disclosed in the approaching investigation and repeal of 
the Voelter patent, which Messrs. Miller and Russell have 
pushed themselves into Congress to prevent, and which they 
can handle without your help. New Hampshire has dealt 
most generously with you : you should deal generously with 
her. You have said you did not desire the office, but pre- 
ferred your law practice. Retire to that, lending your sup- 
port to some one of New Hampshire's gallant soldiers, so 
that we may not have only two Union against twenty Con- 
federate generals in the Senate ; and give peace to our state 
politics. With the aid of Messrs. Livermore and Cheney 
and Daniell, and your other pulp and patent acquaintances, 
you will obtain again a large law business, for which, not 
only by inclination, but, believe me, also by character and 
habits, mental and moral, you are better fitted than to strug- 
gle six years more against the tempters of senators you have 
so forcibly described, and whom, you say, you have never— 
that is, hardly ever — yielded to. 

Very respectfully, 

WM. E. CHANDLER. 



MR. J. McC. PERKINS'S LETTERS. 



Office of J. McC. Perkins, 
Counsellor at Law. 
No. 811 L Street (four squares north of Patent Office.) 
Specialty : Patent Law and Patent Office Practice. 

Washington, D. C, May 28, 1S79. 

Hon. Wm. E. Chandler : 

Dear Sir : Senate Bill 300, generally known as the "Wad- 
leigh Patent Bill," passed the Senate on Jan. 23, 1S79. It 
received the name of the kt Wadleigh Patent Bill," because ex- 
Senator Wadleigh, of New Hampshire, was its most active and 
constant champion in the Senate. As it passed the Senate, it 
was composed of twenty-five sections: as reported to the Sen- 
ate by Mr. Wadleigh, it was composed of twenty-four sections. 
While under consideration in the Senate, a new section was 
sandwiched in between the original second and third sections, 
in order to accommodate certain constituents of a Minnesota 
senator. This changed the numbering of the original sections 
from this point onward, so that the last section of the bill, as it 
passed the Senate, was numbered twenty-five instead of twenty- 
four, as it was reported to the Senate. In my remarks on this 
bill, I shall refer to the sections of it as it was originally report- 
ed to the Senate. It becomes necessary thus to refer to the sec- 
tions of this bill, because the very extended discussions before 
the Senate and House Patent Committees, and in various pub- 
lic journals of this country, have uniformly referred to the orig- 
inal sections of the bill. 

I shall not attempt to consider at this time all of the sections 
of this very remarkable patent bill. There are, however, some 
six sections of the original bill, which I shall briefly refer to in 
order to disclose the infamous character of the class legislation 
in favor of rich manufacturers and rich corporations attempted 
to be saddled on to the country by the Senate Wadleigh Bill. 

These sections are, — 

Section I, relating to a limitation of four years from the 
time when the action accrued, in which actions for infringe- 
ment must be brought, instead of the whole lifetime of the pat- 
ent, as the law now is. 



26 

Section II, relating to damages and profits, which denies to 
the owner of the patent, after he has successfully sued the wil- 
ful infringer, the savings or the profits which the law now 
gives to the owner of the patent ; and, in lieu of these savings or 
profits, only mulcts the rich infringer with the moderate license 
fee which the patentee contracts for with the honest manufac- 
turer. 

Section V, relating to reissues. This section provides that 
only the specification and drawings of the patent shall be used 
as a basis for a reissue, instead of the law as it now stands, by 
which reissues are allowed to cover any feature shown either in 
the model, in the drawings, or in the specification of the patent. 

Section VIII, perpetuating testimony. This section is new, 
and is designed to allow rich and influential manufacturers and 
corporations to hunt up and preserve testimony in any part of 
the country, to be used thereafter to defeat a patent in case a 
suit is commenced. 

Section IX, repeal of patents. This section is new; and it 
authorizes any one who has sufficient money to carry on a suit 
to commence an action to repeal a patent ; and if the owner of 
the patent is unable to furnish sufficient money at once to de- 
fend the patent, he is liable to lose his letters-patent, though 
perfectly valid. 

Section XI, periodical fees on patents. This section is new, 
and provides that the owner of the patent shall pay a further 
fee of" fifty dollars ($50) after the patent has been in force for 
four years, and a further fee of one hundred dollars ($100) after 
the patent has been in force for nine years, or, in the event of 
the failure to pay either of these two fees, the patent shall ter- 
minate. 

I should have spoken also of Section X, which substantially 
provides that a rich and wilful infringer may commence suit 
against the poor inventor or patentee for the purpose of pre- 
venting the patentee from sueing the infringer at any time there- 
after. The abomination of this section is apparent, but not 
more so than appears in all the other sections that I have cited. 

If this "Wadleigh Patent Bill" had been entitled "A bill to 
destroy the existing patent system in the United States, saving 
only so much of the patent law, as a matter of form, as will en- 
able the rich and powerful to tax and oppress inventors and the 
industrial classes as much as they desire," — if such a title had 
been given to the bill by Mr. Wadleigh, it would have honestly 
and frankly expressed its true character. 

Heretofore the patent law in this country has been framed 
to protect the patent franchise of the inventor and patentee. 
The " Wadleigh Patent Bill" not only protects the rich and 
grasping infringer, but it enables the infringer to prosecute 



27 

and to persecute the owner of the patent. Mr. Wadleigh would 
engraft class legislation upon the statutes of the United States 
— such class legislation as would make the rich richer, and the 
poor poorer. If the " Wadleigh Patent Bill " had become a 
law, patent property in this country would have been com- 
paratively of no value. Far better it would have been, to have 
absolutely repealed all laws authorizing the grant of letters 
patent in this country. 

Take Section V, relating to reissues. The Wadleigh Bill 
provides that the features of the invention which are shown 
only in the model, shall not be used as a basis for a reissue. It 
provides that the reissue shall be mnde only on what is shown 
in the drawings or described in the specification. The in- 
ventor makes his model himself. He may be and very often 
is an uneducated man, but he thoroughly understands the 
mechanical principles exhibited in his model. But the draw- 
ings and the specification are made in the office of his attor- 
ney, who generally lives in a distant city. Attorneys well 
know how often it happens that the drawing does not show 
correctly every minute feature which the inventor lias placed 
in his model. Practically, the invention, as embodied in the 
model, is the voice, and the only voice, which the inventor has 
in his Patent Office exhibit, out of which his letters patent 
spring. The Wadleigh Bill, as originally introduced, provid- 
ed for a reissue based on anything shown either in the model, 
in the drawings, or in the specification of the patent. 

But Mr. T. L. Livermore, of Boston, appeared before the 
Senate Patent Committee, and argued that the model should 
be eliminated from consideration, when a reissue was asked 
for. Subsequently, it seems that the word model was struck 
out of Section V, leaving only the drawings and the specifica- 
tion to be consulted in an application for a reissue. 

This mattter of a reissue is the most important matter within 
the jurisdiction of the Patent Office. Inventors, patentees, 
and owners of patents will now fully understand the " true 
inwardness" of section V of the " Wadleigh Patent Bill." 

Section I limits the right of suit against infringers to four 
years after the cause of action has accrued. A rich de- 
fendant will cause a delay of more than four years, before the 
suit can be finally adjudicated. It often happens, that it is 
from half a dozen to a dozen years before the owner of the 
patent becomes cognizant of the fact of the infringement, and 
is able to obtain judicial proof of the same. 

Section II, relating to damages and profits, abolishes all in- 
ducement to the unscrupulous infringer to treat the patentee 
honestly. It says to the infringer, — 



28 

" You can go on and infringe a patent with impunity. If 
" the patentee sues }'ou, you maybe able to exhaust his limited 
" means by legal quibbles, and delays in court. You will have 
" time to hunt up or to manufacture evidence which will de- 
" feat his patent in court. But even if the patentee finally 
"obtains judgment against you, you will only have to pay, as 
" damages, the same amount which the honest manufacturer 
" has paid as a license fee, from the beginning. So, go on and 
" rob the inventor all \ r ou can !" 

I will not, at this time, further consider sections VIII, IX, 
X, and XI of the " Wadleigh Patent Bill." They are quite as 
scandalous as section V, or sect. I, or sect. II, which have just 
been briefly referred to. The able and astute agents of the 
railroad lobby seem to have been the most successful persons 
in persuading ex-Senator Wadleigh what changes were needed 
in the patent system of the United States. For one, as a voter 
and a citizen of New Hampshire, I feel ashamed that the senior 
senator of the Granite State has so absolutely betrayed the 
trust reposed in him, as to become the sponsor for the " Wad- 
leigh Patent Bill." 

In the Independent Statesman of March 6, 1S79, there ap- 
peared a letter from Mr. C. C. Coffin. This letter purported 
to have been written from Washington. The author of this let- 
ter belonged to that class of men who were paid to advocate 
the passage of the Wadleigh Bill by Congress. Certainly he 
displays no little ingenuity in attempting to make the Western 
grangers responsible for this bill, and deserves a patent for the 
novelty of this letter ; but there might, however, be a question 
whether it would answer the requirements of the law in re- 
gard to its utility. However, Mr. Coffin's letter will do little 
harm, and I thus pay my respects to it, and leave it. 

Very respectfully, 

J. McC. PERKINS. 



Washington, D. C, May 30, 1S79. 

Hon. W. E. Chandler, Concord, N. H. : 

Dear Sir : The policy of the law in extending the term of 
letters patent beyond the limit of the original patent, was, and 
is, to compensate the meritorious inventor, when he has failed 
to receive an adequate reward during the life of the original 
patent. It was never the policy of the law of extensions to 
benefit assignees and speculators in patents; and it has been 
the rule and practice of the patent office to refuse to extend 
letters patent, when it appeared that the patent had been as- 
signed to another person, or when there was an existing con- 
tract to assign the patent, after the extension, for a considera- 



29 

tion, notoriously small, in comparison with the profits made 
by the assignee of the patent. Sometimes this practice has 
gone so far that a Commissioner of Patents has withdrawn his 
decision in favor of an extension, even after a favorable de- 
cision had once been deliberately made. This happened when 
it became known to the Commissioner that the inventor had 
sold his interest in the extension for the extended term. There- 
fore, in extensions, it is important to have it appear that the 
title to the patent is in the inventor, and that he has made "no 
arrangements as to the sale of the extended patent." 

On Feb. 27, 1S77, in Senate Report, No. 6SS, ex-Senator 
Wadleigh, of New Hampshire, made the following statement 
in support of the extension of the Voelter Paper Pulp Patent : 
" The evidence s/wzvs that he has made no arrangements as 
to the sale of the extended patent, and that such extension 
will be for his benefit." 

I propose to show that this statement is incorrect, and that 
ex-Senator Wadleigh knew that it was when he made it. In 
the Patent Office Records, for the transfer of patents, in liber 
D. 11, folio 311, under date of Nov. 6, 186S, there appears an 
assignment by H. Voelter to Alberto Pagenstecher, of "all his 
•' right, title, and interest in patent No. 21,161, dated Au^. 10, 
'1858, and antedated to Aug. 29, 1S56, and to any extension 
"or renewals thereof ." Pagenstecher and his assignees and 
his associates have held the title to this patent continuously 
from that date to the present day. Mr. Wadleigh knew this 
fact, of course, when he made the above statement, for the 
Patent Office Records show it. 

Further: under date of April 6, 1869, Pagenstecher obtained, 
in his own name, as the assignee of Voelter, a reissue of this 
patent. Mr. Wadleigh knew this fact. 

Further : Mr. Voelter, in 1S70, in his petition for an extension, 
under the general law providing for extensions, stated that 
he had sold his invention, both for the original and extended 
terms, to Pagenstecher and his associates. Mr. Wadleigh 
knew this fact, because Voelter's statements to this effect w & as 
before him. 

Further: on June 6, 1S71, Mr. Pagenstecher obtained a sec- 
ond reissue of this patent, in his own name, as the assignee of 
Voelter. Mr. Wadleigh knew this fact. 

In Feb., 1S77, before Mr. Wadleigh made this report, he had 
the affidavit before him of the Hon. Warner Miller, of Her- 
kimer, N. Y., stating that he and his associates were interested 
in the pending extension. Mr. Miller, and the Hon. William 
A. Russell, of Lawrence, Mass., also a member of the present 
congress, in the subsequent proceedings for this extension be- 
fore the Patent Office, both admitted, under oath, that they 



30 

owned and controlled the entire Voelter Patent. Mr. Russell 
also stated that it would result in a serious pecuniary loss to 
him if the Voelter Patent was not extended a second time. 

In his petition for a second extension in 1S77, Mr. Voelter 
reiterated the fact that he had sold out his interest in the pat- 
ent to "Mr. Pagenstecher and his associates" for the extended 
term. 

Now it seems to me that these record facts can leave no 
shadow of doubt in the mind of any fair man that ex-Senator 
Wadlei°;h knew that he was stating a falsehood when he made 
the statement heretofore quoted. 

The law in relation to the extension of letters patent, when 
a foreign patent has been obtained, as well as a patent in the 
United States by a foreigner, is well stated in the decisions of 
the Commissioner of Patents for 1S70. Page 10S. 

It is as follows : " The extension of letters patent is not mat- 
" ter of right, but of favor. The seven years for which the ex- 
" istence of a patent may be prolonged, is in no sense, prior 
" to the actual grant of the extension, a part of the origi- 
" nal term. When, therefore, the statute declares that the pa- 
" tent shall expire at the same time with the foreign patent, I 
" am very clearly of the opinion that if, at the expiration of the 
" original term, it appears that the foreign patent has already 
"expired, no prolongation of the term of the American patent 
"can be permitted. This is in accordance with the letter and 
" spirit of the enactment. The intention of Congress obviously 
"was, to obtain for this country the free use of the inventions 
" of foreigners as soon as they became free abroad. This is 
" indicated by the use of the plrrase, ' first patented or caused 
" ' to be patented in a foreign country,' for it was presumable 
" that American citizens would obtain their first patent here, 
" while a foreigner would first patent his invention in his own 
" country. The statute was designed to prevent a foreigner 
"from spending his time and capital in the development of an 
" invention in his own country, and then coming to this to en- 
" joy a further monopoly when the invention had become free 
"at home." 

This decision was made by the late ex-Commissioner of Pa- 
tents Fisher, now deceased, who had a national reputation for 
being an accomplished patent lawyer. This is a very excep- 
tional characteristic of a Commissioner of Patents, who is rare- 
ly a lawyer, but generally obtains this office, as other public 
offices are obtained, as a compensation for political or per- 
sonal services. 

The law relating to this matter I will quote from the Revised 
Statutes : 



Sec. 4SS7. No person shall be debarred from receiving a 
patent for his invention or discovery, nor shall any patent be 
declared invalid, by reason of its having been first patented or 
caused to be patented in a foreign country, unless the same has 
been introduced into public use in the United States for more 
than two years prior to the application. But every patent 
granted for an invention which has been previously patented 
in a foreign country shall be so limited as to expire at the 
same time with the foreign patent, or, if there be more than 
one, at the sa?ne time with the one having the shortest term, 
and in no case shall it be in force more than seventeen years. 

Hence it is evident that the first extension of the Voelter 
Patent, made on Aug. 29, 1S70, was illegal, and contrary to 
the letter and spirit of the act of July 8, 1S70. For Mr. Voel- 
ter, in his petition for the extension, in 1S70, stated that all his 
" foreign patents had then expired, or nearly so." Much more, 
the second extension of 1S77 was contrary to the letter and 
spirit of the act of July S, 1S70, regarding this matter. 

I have in this letter referred to this last-named objection to the 
Voelter Patent, because I think it is a vital and important one. 
I think I overlooked it in my former letter to you, concerning 
the validity of the Voelter Patent. 

Very respectfully, 

J. McC. PERKINS. 

Washington, D. C, May 29, 1S79. 
William E. Chandler: 

Dear Sir : Hon. Wm. M. Springer, M. C. from Illinois, says 
that when the act of March 3, 1877, came before the House 
for action, after it had passed the Senate, he objected to its con- 
sideration at that time. It was then the midnight before that 
Congress expired by legal limitation on the next day at 12 
o'clock. No new bill could then be considered and acted upon, 
without the unanimous consent of the House of Representa- 
tives. Just then, when the bill was in imminent danger, by 
this unexpected objection on the part of Mr. Springer, Hon. 
Wm. H. H. Stowell, then a member from Virginia, came to 
Mr. Springer, and told him that this was "a bill to aid in the 
dissemination of knowledge ;" that this was a House bill, and 
that it had been reported to the House by the House Patent 
Committee. Not doubting the veracity of Mr. Stowell as a 
man of honor, and at the urgent persuasion of Mr. Stowell, 
Mr. Springer consented to withdraw his objection to the Voel- 
ter bill. Mr. Springer now says that Stowell made an erron- 
eous statement to him ; and that the record shows that it was 
not a House bill at all, and that it had flever been considered 
by the House Patent Committee. 



32 

Now for the sequel. On the Transfer Records of the Patent 
Office, liber No. 23, folio 441, there appears, under date of 
March 23, 1S7S, and recorded Feb. 26, 1S79, an exclusive 
license of the Voelter Patent from Warner Miller, Herkimer, 
New York, to William H. H. Stowell, of Appleton, Wiscon- 
sin, and two of his associates, covering the states of Ohio, In- 
diana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, and Iowa. 
This license limits the use of the Voelter Patent to wood pre- 
viously treated by a process described in the Averill Patent of 
May 30, 1S76. A significant provision of this exclusive license 
is, that Stowell and his associates shall pay, " their due pro- 
" portion of all expenses incurred from and after March 1, 
" 1S7S, in maintaining said Voelter Patent; the amount thus 
" due, to be such part of the aggregate expenses as the pulp 
" by them made is of the aggregate quantity of pulp made by 
" the owners and licensees of such patents." 

On the same date, and recorded at the same time, there ap- 
pears in the same liber, folio 443, a license to the Fox River 
Pulp & Paper Co., of Appleton Wisconsin, to use the Voel- 
ter Patent. In this license, also, there appears the same sig- 
nificant clause regarding contributions to maintain the Voelter 
Patent, and Wm. H. H. Stowell seems to have been the secre- 
tary of the Fox River Pulp & Paper Co. On Oct. S, 187S, 
Wm. H. H. Stowell, as secretary of the Fox River Pulp & 
Paper Co., executed an assignment of its interest in the Voel- 
ter Patent to the Atlas Paper Co. What other interest, if any, 
prior or subsequent to these recorded assignments, may have 
been made to the Hon. Wm. H. H. Stowell, late Member of 
Congress from Virginia, the Patent Office Records do not dis- 
close up to the date of this letter. 

Very respectfully, 

J. McC. PERKINS. 



MR. CHANDLER'S REJOINDER 

TO MR. WADLEIGH. 



Concord, June 12, 1879. 
Hon. B. Wadleigh : 

Sir : My demand for specifications of your oral and written slanders of 
me during the past two years, results only in the mention by you of the 
District Ring, and of steamship subsidies. 

As to the District ring: During the winter of 1871 and 1872 I 
was counsel for the district authorities before a committee of investiea- 
tion; attended the open public hearings for more than two months; sub- 
mitted an argument showing that up to that time they had not exceed- 
ed their lawful powers, which the committee also reported. After that 
time I was not counsel for them, except to give, in connection with 
Judge Walter S. Cox, a Democratic lawyer, and Mr. Caleb Cushing, a 
written opinion concerning the validity of the issue of some bonds. 
During the later extravagant days of " the Washington ring," I had no 
part in, nor responsibility as, counsel or otherwise, for any of their acts, 
as Col. N. G. Ordway, who vehemently opposed them after their first 
year, well knows. 

As to steamship subsidies ; the charge can only refer to my relations 
as counsel with Mr. John Roach. Mr. Roach came to this country forty 
years ago. and worked as a foundry laborer at #28 per month. By the 
aid of great natural powers and patient industry he has become an ex- 
tensive manufacturer of marine engines, and almost the only iron ship- 
builder in America. Although uneducated and partly deaf, he is one of 
the most remarkable men of the time. In 1868 he became my friend 
and client, has given me his fullest confidence, and has never taken an 
important business step at New York, Chester, or Washington, without 
consulting me. His simplicity, integrity, and greatness of mind and 
heart make him respected by all who know him. The mail contract for 
his Brazilian line of steamships, which he unsuccessfully asked Con- 
gress lor, was favored by the whole manufacturing interests of New 



34 

England, and Hon. E. A. Straw and the other manufacturers of Man- 
chester wrote you in its behalf, but you suppressed the memorial. 

And so, after utterances during two years of slanders charging me 
with being dishonorable and disreputable, vouched for as true on your 
Senatorial honor, and of published suggestions that I belonged with 
rapacious and corrupt ringsters and lobbyists, plunderers of the govern- 
ment, when you are compelled, before the people of New Hampshire, 
to attempt to give specifications, you make statements either feeble or 
false, based solely upon common rumors, for which you are mainly re- 
sponsible. 

Truly, I have the right to denounce you as a wilful libeller, unworthy 
of credit among honorable men ; willing unjustly to destroy in another 
what you yourself never had,— a character for integrity and honor. 

Your statement that I sustained Andrew Johnson when he was swing- 
ing around the circle, is false, as you know. 1 was frankly, openly, and 
to the knowledge of President Johnson, Secretary McCulloch, and 
everybody else, utterly opposed to his policy, and remained in office 
because urged to do so by Hon. George S. Boutwell, Hon. John A. 
Logan, and many other radical congressmen ; and when the crisis was 
over, and Mr. Johnson harmless, in November, 1867, I resigned ;— was 
chairman of the Committee on Resolutions in the New Hampshire 
Convention, in December, drafted and reported resolutions denounc- 
ing the policy; and was a delegate to the Grant Convention, and Secre- 
tary of the National Committee conducting the Presidential campaign 
of 1868. 

SENATE BILL No. 300. 

Your only reply as to the merits of your Senate Patent Bill 300, is the 
general statement that you believe it to be a good one. On this point 
you are opposed by the real friends of the patent system, and can fight 
out the issue with them. You say you did what you could to preserve 
the patent system. I charge that you took advantage of its unpopular- 
ity to give it fatal blows, and leave it only an instrument to enable rich 
corporations to oppress and defraud poor inventors, and for the larceny 
of the fruits of their brains by rich and grasping capitalists. 

AS TO THE VOELTER PATENT. 
I. 
You say the report was too long to be read when you tried to get the 
bill through, and objected to reading the report, saying, " // is too 
long:" Then you tried to get this enormous swindle through the Sen- 
ate on your personal honor as a voucher for its integrity, when you 



35 

knew there was not 2^ minutes in which to hear the report read ! If 
that scheme does you credit, the parties trusting you do understand 
what trickery is. 

II. 

You say that you are charged with making a false statement as to 
Voelter's owning the patent, because the written agreement between 
Voelter and Pagenstecher, applying to all extensions, which was before 
the Committee, was void ; and you allude to no other reasons. 

That is only one of the reasons why you knew your statement that 
Voelter had made no arrangements as to the sale of the extended pat- 
ent, and that such extension would be for his benefit, was false. 

Miller and Russell stated before you that they were interested in the 
patent. They were, as a matter of fact. And Governor Cheney was 
in Washington engineering through this bill, almost solely by your aid. 
No man in New Hampshire needs be told that when you made this the 
only thing the Committee on Patents asked for at that session, and with 
all your might and main crowded and tricked it through the Senate, you 
did it not for poor Henry Voelter in Germany, but for Governor Che- 
ney. Miller, Russell, Daniell, and their associates, who you know had 
contracts and arrangements so that the extension would be for their 
benefit (as it in fact indisputably was), and who are now in Concord, 
two of them in person, and two financially, laboring for your re-election. 

III. 

You admit that you succeeded in extending this patent with which to 
oppress the public and enrich the pulp ring, for seven years after the 
foreign patent had expired, and other nations had the invention free. 
Did you do that for poverty-stricken Henry Voelter? 

IV. 

You admit that you stated to the Senate (by clerical mistake, you now 
say), in order to show how meritorious the invention was and to jus- 
tify its extension, that 360,000 tons of pulp were made annually ; when 
from 18,000 to 36,000 is the true amount ; and yet you charge me with 
" many glaring inaccuracies," which, characteristically, you do not 
specify. 

V. 

You state that the patent is not a monopoly, because the price of 
pulp has declined. It has declined because prices of everything have 
fallen, and the monopoly just now dare not keep it up. But they have 
an illegal, unjust, fraudulent monopoly, and can make the price what 



36 

they please ; and have limited the supply, and do crush out competition, 
as the facts can be proved. 

VI. 

Your statement that I hired the Democratic correspondent of the Bos- 
ton Globe to write a letter about the Voelter Patent is a lie, and I defy 
you to prove your assertion. 

Your clerk and agent, John W. Odlin, states that my paragraph con- 
cerning him is not true "in any respect;" "is a tissue of malicious 
falsehoods from beginning to end." He denies that he knew or drank 
with " any member of any Western railroad ring." He probably does 
not choose to admit that the Western Railroad Association of Chicago, 
formed to influence legislation against patents, was a ring, — and so 
evades ; but he did know and associate with the agents of that associa- 
tion, as can be readily proved ; that they had free liquors is beyond 
dispute ; and that he did not drink them no one will believe who knows 
him. If he is a reformed man it will be news to every one ; and he has 
freely boasted, not merely of his feats of dissipation, but of other and 
viler habits which need not be named. 

On mere rumor I would have charged him with nothing, but would 
have refrained on account of his honored parents ; but as he has made 
these boasts freely and often, and lately, I have seen fit to speak of him 
as he deserves. 

I charged you with having placed him upon the Senate rolls alter- 
nately as committee clerk and as a laborer. The following document- 
ary evidence proves the facts, and no one but you could have placed 
him on the rolls as a laborer from the time he became your clerk and 
" familiar," down to the time when Senator Saulsbury turned him out 
of the committee room, and threw a certificate after him to soften his 
fall. 

Secretary Gor/iam's report of Dec. 2, 1878. 

Pay-roll for quarter ending Sept. 30, 1877; John W. Odlin, 

laborer $180.00 

ending Dec. 31, 1877; John W. Odlin, laborer 180.00 

ending March 31, 187S; J. W. Odlin, laborer, Jan, 

1 to January 14 28.00 

J. W. Odlin, clerk to Committee on Privileges and 
Elections, vice Burbank, Jan. 15 to March 31, 
inclusive 468.65 

for quarter ending June 30, 1878 ; J. W. Odlin, clerk to 

Committee on Privileges and Elections 555-°° 



37 

Secretary Gorham's report of March 24, 1879. 

Pay-roll for quarter ending Sept. 30, 1878 ; J. W. Odlin, la- 
borer, vice Atkinson, from Aug. 1 to Sept. 30. . . 1 19.40 
for quarter ending Dec. 31, 1878 ; J. W. Odlin, laborer, 

Oct. 1 to Nov. 30 x IQ40 

Contingent Fund Disbursements. 

J. W. Odlin, 30 days' services as clerk to Committee on Priv- 
ileges and Elections, Dec. 2 to 31, at $6 per day 180.00 

Thirty-one days, Jan. 1 to 31, at $6 per day 186.00 

Four days, March 1 to 4, at $6 per day 24.00 

AS TO YOUR DODGING VOTES. 

There is no doubt you were chilly when the electoral commission bill 
was voted on ; but it was singular that you voted just before, saw the 
final vote coming, and ran to bed. Your residence was only a few 
steps from the capitol. You could have waited or returned easily. 
Your excuse is a pretence. You dodged deliberately, and you know it. 

So it seems you paired against Pinchback. The reported teleorams 
to you to pair in his favor led me to suppose you dodged. Your oppo- 
sition to Pinchback was contrary to the views of the Republicans of 
New Hampshire. Your statement as to Senator Morton is a libel upon 
the dead. He spoke and labored for Pinchback's admission. Charges 
of corruption in the election were made, and he opposed their investi- 
gation on the question of prima facie right, saying, if they were subse- 
quently proved true, Pinchback could be ejected ;— which is the only 
basis for your falsehood about him. 

You reaffirm your reasons given in the Telegraph, and to its editor, 
for not voting on the New York nominations, which were that you dis- 
covered that Senator Matthews had a bargain with the Democrats 
about Hamburg Butler's case. To that charge Senator Matthews gives 
the lie in writing. I leave you to enjoy it. The disgraceful and true 
reason,— permission to dodge, from Secretary Sherman,— stands unim- 
peachable, and susceptible of proof. 

As to the McVeagh commission case, I know you did dodge, and am 
not mistaken when I say I saw you; and I can prove the fact by other 
persons. 

YOUR OTHER FALSEHOODS. 

You attribute my hostility to you to your opposition to measures in 
which I had a deep interest ; but you have not dared to specify the 
measures. I deny your charge, and say that I oppose you because your 



38 

character, methods, dodges, and dishonesty as a Senator are discredit- 
able to you and the state. 

Notwithstanding your opinion of me, it seems you went to the Presi- 
dent in the fall of 1377, with Mr. Briggs, and asked him to give me a 
foreign mission. This was not at my solicitation : I never heard you 
had done it until some time after ; never heard that Mr. Briggs went, 
and do not believe that you did it at the solicitation of my friends ; and 
I ask you to name them publicly. If you went, your only motive was to 
get me out of the country when the approaching Senatorial election 
should come off. 

Your statement that I have acted in opposing President Hayes's South- 
ern policy from disappointment at not getting a foreign mission is false. 
Without my solicitation, immediately after the inauguration, a foreign 
mission was offered me; the offer was repeated, and has never been 
withdrawn. I could have had one at any time prior to Dec. 26, 1877; 
but even if I had much desired it, which I did not, I should have pre- 
ferred to repudiate the policy rather than to hold any office, however 
high or honorable. 

You say that the Senate Committee did not know your opinion on 
the right of the legislature of 1878 to elect a Senator till informed by 
other persons. What a desperate and reckless falsifier you have be- 
come ! You had published a letter in the Statesman, March 14, 1878, 
giving your opinion on the subject against the right, and I am informed 
and believe you made the first draft of the report of the committee, 
and had it put in print. The Senate is not now of the opinion express- 
ed in the committee's report. 

You say you will not stoop to reply to my insinuations against your 
personal character. They were not insinuations. I do not deal in 
them ; you do. I stated facts and charges, and made them specific. 
You have not adequately answered them. I leave the issue where it 

belongs. 

W. E. CHANDLER. 










LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




013 787 933 5 




